Individual investors in US private prisons are poised to collect their most lucrative earnings ever thanks to changes in the tax code signed by Donald Trump...Under the new GOP law, investments in so-called “real estate investment trusts” (reits) will see a 25% reduction in tax…Corecivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and the Geo Group, which together own more than 80% of private prison beds in the US, both restructured as reits in 2013...

...With dividends of more than $430m paid out by the two major private prison companies in 2017, in theory, prison investors could see an additional $50m in dividend earnings next year...The actual figure will be lower than that, however, as some proportion of those shares are owned by institutional investors which are taxed differently from individuals...

...A CoreCivic representative told the Guardian that “there are far more pressing matters for Congress to pursue” than the reit tax classifications...The Geo Group added they are “treated exactly the same as other real estate investment trusts without any special tax treatments or loopholes”. The point that activists make, though, is that treating prisons as real estate is a loophole...

...Divestment campaigns have successfully pulled more than $4bn out of banks (principally Wells Fargo) and other organizations that invest in the industry. “Since the tax benefit goes directly to the investors, I think the divestment work actually becomes more important… [to] stop the flow of capital,” [Jamie] Trinkle [of the racial and economic justice coalition Enlace] said...